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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

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Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#931

Post by presentation »

dahart wrote: post #787
presentation wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is extremely litigious, rules are decided not by the legislature usually but instead by people suing each other to establish case law, and anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim. So probably people who don’t like the idea of adult content can use the courts to make payment processors’ lives painful and they decide to just forgo that business. US courts are too easy t…

This is an oft-repeated misconception. Germany is almost twice as litigious as the US. Sweden and Austria are also more litigious than the US. > anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim This is FUD, not reality. While it’s “possible” for anyone in any country to try to sue, it simply doesn’t happen in the US more often than elsewhere. The relatively high number of US lawsuits…

I can also pull out numbers and statistics that make it sound like the US is more litigous than other nations, like how it spends way more than any country as a fraction of GDP on litigation [1] as well as how litigation is used frivolously to prevent projects by weaponizing environmental regulation like NEPA and CEQA, to prevent the construction of practically anything in the USA.

But all that aside, taking that Harvard law article at face value, there are specifically mishandled types of suits, and those include those that are intended to inflict cost on payments processors to get them to reject customers that otherwise aren't doing anything illegal, but just operate in an industry that those suing don't like.

[1] https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/media...

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#932

Post by mango7283 »

jncfhnb wrote: post #913
mango7283 wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're saying that if things have come to the point that activists can successfully pressure a AAA title like BG3 to be delisted from steam, then they'll worry. What do BG3 and the title in question have in common? "incest" (though, not non-con, I don't think BG3 has such) What does BG3 have that the other title doesn't? Critical acclaim and the support of the mainstream. THis is the same issue with GOT. Why does BH…

The argument seems centered on content though. BG3 is fairly tame. Outlast trials has you mutilate genitals and has people threatening to rape you frequently.

If you think they should delist it then by all means, raise a petition or bring it to their attention. Perhaps the activist group simply has not had the resources to target this particular title yet.

You already know VISA and/or Mastercard will respond if an activist group raises enough of a concern so what's stopping you?

Ah right, you think if they got one game removed on a petition, they should somehow also be able to remove every single other game that may or may not meet the same criteria even though it probably took them significant effort to the the first game removed and this is some sort of "gotcha" on their moral inconsistency rather than a simple limitation of resources to try to get their will done all at once?

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#933

Post by qingcharles »

terminalshort wrote: post #257
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried to do the same to OnlyFans, but lost that battle

Onlyfans actually made financial sense, though, because chargeback rates are very high. This move makes no financial sense at all.

This is absolutely not true. OF's chargeback rates are incredibly low. Vastly lower than, say, Amazon. I have this directly from friends who work in this space. Do you have a citation that shows otherwise?

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#934

Post by qingcharles »

morkalork wrote: post #274
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried to do the same to OnlyFans, but lost that battle

Didn't onlyfans severely limit the type of content creators could make and distribute through the platform, just like valve here?

Yes, recently they put in place a ban on fursuits and other animal-wear since the payment processors determined that it would promote bestiality. I am not joking.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#935

Post by mbs159 »

Diti wrote: post #190
UltraSane wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa and Mastercard generally don't like anything with incest, rape, and/or underage participants.

But they are strangely okay with murder.

It's kind of fucked up that we are almost used to murder in various media (movies, games, etc.), meanwhile even slightly explicit sex is much more taboo. I do vaguely understand why this is (religious beliefs that formed our understanding of what is acceptable and what-not), but I am still surprised that this is how it is even with the rise of Atheism in recent decades.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#936

Post by mbs159 »

nkrisc wrote: post #86
bji9jhff wrote: post #59

It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not real. This statement imply that: * Simulated violence is not violence. * Simulated sex is not sex. * Simulated sorcery is not sorcery

And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society. It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.

> There are some things that should not be normalized in society.

Who gets to decide these things and based on what?

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#937

Post by mbs159 »

0xcafefood wrote: post #388
bfg_9k wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This genuinely baffles me. Who cares! It's a video game. It's pixels on a screen. True crime podcasts and movies are a-okay but when its a video game that's where the line is drawn?

There are still taboos even for pixels on a screen, even for video games. It's a good thing. There should be. Perhaps you're just saying that you're mostly comfortable with the depiction of some forms of violence in some contexts. But what about other scenarios though? Would you feel the same about a game where the player runs around raping women, or capturing and lynching escaped slaves? It's just pixels!

> Would you feel the same about a game where the player runs around raping women, or capturing and lynching escaped slaves? It's just pixels!

If we are already okay with mass murder in video games, then absolutely yes.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#939

Post by Jolter »

mbs159 wrote: post #938
Jolter wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead! I dare you. In your own real name.

Sure, do you have a link?

I am saying that someone who wants incest porn games reinstated on Steam (the GGP commenter) should create that petition.

I’m not that someone; I don’t think Valve has any moral obligation to platform ”any content, as long as it is not illegal”. They have the freedom to choose what they publish. Petition away, see if anyone cares!

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#940

Post by stockerta »

williamdclt wrote: post #515
sigmoid10 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards are much less heavily relied on in Europe than in the USA. Europe basically runs on debit cards that every kid can have and where the fees are minuscule. There are countless banks providing the service and everything is highly regulated. On top of that, Europe still curbed Visa and Mastercard several times for antitrust behaviour. And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money launde…

> the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established I think that's very hyperbolic. In france most people I know carry cash and use it regularly (not as much as cards), the gen X and older tend to find it strange to pay for small sums (eg bread) with card. Germany is infamously almost cash-only. In many Central Europe countries, shops takin…

In Hungary by law every seller that has a cash register also has to accept cards. So I guess you were here some years ago.
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